


Not Even the Gods Themselves

by VanLudwig



Series: The House of the Serpent [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 07:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12836148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanLudwig/pseuds/VanLudwig
Summary: When Horace Slughorn scouts him for a position within his horrid social club, Blaise is neither surprised nor flattered. He does not like to be gawked at, unlike his housemate Parkinson, nor does he wish to be admired for his lineage, unlike his housemate Malfoy. But Blaise understands that he must allow certain things to happen to him if he wants to stay ahead in life, and so he accepts the invitations to Slughorn’s deplorable parties.It is at one such party that Blaise Zabini meets Luna Lovegood.





	Not Even the Gods Themselves

Blaise Zabini is not overly fond of the others. It isn’t as if he doesn’t enjoy the amusement his fellow Slytherins often bring him. Nor is it altogether correct to say that he doesn’t exploit the social advantages of having friends like Malfoy and Parkinson and Nott. Blaise would be the last person to say an unkind word about anyone, actually, but that’s not to say that he does not have unkind thoughts. He feels that his fellow Slytherins are, for lack of a better word, petty. They tout things like blood purity and belittle other students for the simple fact that they are not Slytherins. They place too much importance on things like appearance and family stock and fail to acknowledge the things that truly matter in a person. They do not cross house lines in order to preserve their feelings of superiority. One of the great benefits of going to Hogwarts rather than private tutoring is the forum that allows students to learn from one another. This practice in self-sheltering will ultimately make them all inferior wizards.

Blaise Zabini is not a stupid man, so he does not bring any of this to his friends’ attentions. Blaise is a man with a deep respect for society and how to navigate it, though he disagrees with the basis by which one gains value in it, and so he reserves his more inflammatory opinions for his own private thoughts or for the company of his mother, who instilled these values within him. 

Blaise knows, in spite of its lack of importance to him, that he is good-looking. He comes from Veela stock. His mother is perhaps the most beautiful living creature within magical society. His whole life, he and his mother have been the subject of adoration and speculation amongst the wizarding community (particularly regarding his many step-fathers, all of whom are dead and many deservedly so). When Horace Slughorn scouts him for a position within his horrid social club, Blaise is neither surprised nor flattered. He does not like to be gawked at, unlike his housemate Parkinson, nor does he wish to be admired for his lineage, unlike his housemate Malfoy. But Blaise understands that he must allow certain things to happen to him if he wants to stay ahead in life, and so he accepts the invitations to Slughorn’s deplorable parties.

It is at one such party that Blaise Zabini meets Luna Lovegood. She is standing by the dessert table in a three-tiered dress of crushed lavender velvet, muttering to herself as she stacks licorice allsorts onto a paper plate. Blaise watches the way she shakes her head, sending cascading waves of tight blonde curls tumbling about her shoulders and sets her hideous silver earrings ringing like windchimes. Her face is plain, not even a smudge of rouge to give her pallid complexion some much-needed color. She shuffles her feet, looking as if one wrong move would send her stumbling into the table, and selects a few bon bons to accompany her licorice. She is, quite simply, a spectacle of bad taste and social obliviousness.

Blaise notices these things about her appearance and does not particularly care. What interests him is the way Lovegood does not seem to care, either. He has spent so much of his life surrounded by people who care deeply to the point of obsession that it genuinely stuns him for a moment to see a person who does not, particularly in this setting. Slughorn’s party is a den of smug, overly preoccupied mini-socialites, all vying for social status and the companionship of those superior to them. He wonders how she was invited, but it does not take a genius to realize she is here with Potter. Potter, who never combs his hair and wears ill-fitting clothing, even to Slughorn’s Christmas party. He is the only person in this room whose reputation could take a hit like Luna Lovegood.

Blaise knows about her father Xenophilius, about his silly little Quibbler publication. He and his mother are avid readers if only to delight in the utter absurdity of it all. He imagines that Lovegood must have built up her tolerance for criticism and scorn as a result of her parentage. Yes, it made sense that a girl like Luna Lovegood would be impervious to judgement and ridicule. How could she stand so much of it otherwise? 

Blaise Zabini watches Luna Lovegood for whole minutes until Potter notices. The unkempt savoir marches right up to Blaise and stares him down with a grave expression. “You’d better not be thinking of saying anything to Luna, Zabini.”

Blaise arches an eyebrow. “Anything, Potter? That’s quite a tall order. Suppose I wanted to ask Lovegood to dance, or to share her desserts, or to inquire about next week’s Transfiguration essay. Are those out of bounds, as well? If I had asked her to pass the gravy at dinner, would you have hexed me?”

Potter’s expression freezes on suspicion a moment before diffusing into mistrust with a shake of his head. “I’m watching you, Zabini. Don’t ruin this night for her.”

As Potter stalks off, Blaise hears him muttering something about “Slytherins” and “bloody strange” and is not quite sure what to make of the interaction. 

A hand on his arm brings his attention to Lovegood herself, whose eyes are firmly fixed on his own. Not in a challenging way, nor in a threatening one. Lovegood’s eyes are calm, her eye contact speaks of a gentle confidence that deeply intrigues Blaise. “What’s Harry in a fuss about? Did he argue with you?”

“I think he attempted to, yes,” Blaise tells her. Her hand on his arm narrows the room. For this moment, Blaise’s entire universe is contained within the space between them. “He didn’t want me bothering you.”

The corners of Lovegood’s mouth quirk up. “How strange.”

How strange, indeed, Blaise thinks. “Does my conversation bother you, Lovegood?”

“Not especially,” she tells him, “I’m going to go dance now. Goodbye, Blaise.”

His given name on her lips startles him. As she is walking away, he cannot help but ask, “May I join you?”

Luna turns around, but she is still walking. “I cannot see what my preference has to do with whether you come dance or not.”

Blaise watches her leave. He does not join her. But he thinks about it for days.

Xxx xxX

The next time Malfoy and Parkinson make fun of Potter, Blaise does not join in. 

They are in the Great Hall for dinner after their classes concluded for the day. Blaise is buttering some wax beans, minding his own business, when he is quite without warning thrust into the evening’s Potter-bashing. 

“Don’t you agree, Blaise? Isn’t it horrid? Blaise?” 

Blaise sets his gaze on Parkinson, who is smirking toothily over at the Gryffindor table. “Isn’t what horrid?” he asks, needing clarification so he can make the appropriate noises for her benefit. 

“Potter and Lovegood,” she crows, “Draco told me they were seen going to the party together, and you were there.” She is sniggering behind her hand, though Blaise does not know why she feels the need to make a pretense of hiding her very blatant amusement. “Tell us, Blaise, did they dance together? Step on each other’s toes? Was her dress absolutely hideous? I heard that it was.”

Blaise remembers the image of Luna Lovegood at the Christmas party, her velvet dress swinging wildly as she did, indeed, dance in a sort of whimsical fashion to the music being played. She’d done some very odd things with her wrists, keeping them bent at odd angles while swinging her arms at the elbow. Her feet, strapped into a pair of glittering heels, shuffled awkwardly to rhythms she couldn’t have hoped to keep up with. Potter had joined her for a slow dance, but Luna had held him at arms’ length, smiling a dreamy, faraway sort of smile and shaking her head, setting those curls to their wild tumbling. Blaise had watched her all night, and he had quite fallen in love with her utter lack of grace and charm. 

Blaise finds himself leaning his chin into his palm, elbow propped up on the table. He looks towards the Ravenclaw table, watching Luna arrange her potatoes and gravy into a volcano, complete with green pea scrub brush and carrot trees for a landscape. 

“Blaise,” Parkinson insists, “What are you- oh! Oh, Draco, do you see what Loony’s doing?”

Blaise frowns. Luna is sitting quite far from her classmates. He knows she is the subject of ridicule amongst members of his house, but does the problem persist for her into Ravenclaw, as well? Surely, she has some friends to sit with. Doesn’t Potter like her?

“They’re a right pair,” Draco is saying, his voice shrill and piercing into Blaise’s thoughts, “Potter and Lovegood. Could you imagine?”

“I thought Potter dated that Weasley girl,” Blaise offers, mostly to satisfy his friends desire for him to join them in their mockery, “I was under the impression their union was the worst-case scenario for the human race?”

Parkinson sniggers in an unladylike fashion. Malfoy splutters something profane about Potter’s choice in women. Blaise watches Luna. 

Xxx xxX

Blaise gets his second chance to talk to Luna Lovegood when he is escorting her to the infirmary after a botched spell in Transfiguration class. She’d been successfully turned into a ficus by her classmate but somewhat unsuccessfully turned back. Lovegood has her arm through his, and though her skin is distinctly rough and wooden presently, Blaise feels the same thrill he had felt on the evening of the party. 

He is going to kill Theo Nott when he gets back to the common room. Really, why Lovegood even agreed to be his partner today is beyond him. 

“It’s really actually not that bad,” Luna says, which sort of startles Blaise. Her voice sounds the same as it always does. He hadn’t expected that, given the various alterations that had been made to her person. 

“Not that bad?” Blaise asks. He does not smile, though he feels quite fond of Luna in that moment. Of course she wouldn’t mind being turned into, essentially, a giant bowtruckle. 

“I quite like it,” Luna says, her hand rising to touch the thicket of vine-like leaves that has replaced her hair. “I feel very spiritual.”

Blaise looks at her, then, fully takes in her appearance. Her bark-like skin, now as dark as his own, the strange moss color of her irises, and of course the leaves sprouting from her head. He imagines she might be beautiful, like a fairy or a wood nymph, if Nott had attempted to turn her into a flowering plant. But no, Luna Lovegood looks sort of horrifying right now. Blaise is amused that she likes it. He likes her for it. 

“Well, Pomfrey will set you right,” Blaise tells her, “So enjoy it while you can.”

“You know, you’re quite an odd person, Blaise.”

Blaise spits out a laugh, is surprised into it, really. He grins at Luna. “You’re one to talk, Lovegood.”

“I mean it,” Luna insists, smiling that dreamy, carefree smile of hers, “You are quite strange, Blaise Zabini.”

“You’ve aroused my curiosity,” Blaise admits, still grinning at the altogether impossibly odd tree girl that has just accused him of strangeness. “How am I strange?”

“You don’t laugh,” she says, and though she is still smiling, it is decidedly less dreamy, “I have never seen you laugh, not even with your friends.”

Blaise’s own smile vanishes. “My friends and I do not share a sense of humor.”

“I don’t know if I could call someone a friend if I couldn’t laugh with them.”

Blaise regards her openly. “They are often making fun of people. I don’t find that funny.”

“Me either,” Luna agrees, cocking her head to the side, as if in thought. Then, she says, “You know, I know everyone thinks I’m funny in the head.”

Blaise does not know what to say.

“Everyone likes to laugh and call me names. Loony Lovegood.” Her smile still does not fade, but there is something hard and tense behind her eyes now. “I’ve grown used to the teasing. I don’t exactly mind it, but it helps to have friends that stand up for you, that are kind to you, like Harry.” She shakes her head, and it sounds like wind rushing through trees and brittle leaves on a cold, autumn day. “Even when Ron and the others make fun, Harry doesn’t join in. And when your friends make fun of people, you don’t join in with them, do you?”

Blaise gives a single shake of his head. 

“I’ve never seen you laughing with them, and I know they like to laugh at cruel jokes, so I reasoned that you simply must not enjoy that kind of thing.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why are they your friends?”

Blaise cannot believe how deep into him Luna Lovegood reaches, nor how profoundly she grips his soul and shakes it. “I believe that I am above caring about appearances. I suppose that’s not true.”

“I suppose it isn’t.”

They reach the infirmary, and Blaise makes the walk back to class alone. Luna Lovegood’s words haunt him every step of the way.


End file.
